


Wall Street

by StarryGatorr



Series: The Life of an Annoying Orange Gijinka with a God Complex [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Animal Attack, Childhood, Fishing, Gen, One Shot, Slice of Life, Survival, well i say "attack" but its just a bunch of seagulls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:28:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23102491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarryGatorr/pseuds/StarryGatorr
Summary: According to Wikipedia, a mere eight blocks in some rat-infested city of dreamers somehow turned into the most economically powerful financial center in the world. And where money is power, it's also food, and food is survival. When you walk up the stairs of your sea world apartment, you like to imagine yourself in a suit, walking on the sidewalk in New York on a hot summer day, the seagulls surrounding you all competitors vying for the same silver dollars glimmering in the scales of life sustaining fish.
Series: The Life of an Annoying Orange Gijinka with a God Complex [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660495
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Wall Street

**Author's Note:**

> I finally realized that maybe instead of dedicating myself to feature length fanfics i know i wont finish, i should probably stick to writing one-shots of my fave characters when i feel like it? Progress! Anyways, this is the start of a series looking into dirk's life before sburb. Enjoy!

According to Wikipedia, a mere eight blocks in some rat-infested city of dreamers somehow turned into the most economically powerful financial center in the world. And where money is power, it's also food, and food is survival. When you walk up the stairs of your sea world apartment, you like to imagine yourself in a suit, walking on the sidewalk in New York on a hot summer day, the seagulls surrounding you all competitors vying for the same silver dollars glimmering in the scales of life sustaining fish. Of course, your scrawny 9-year-old self couldn’t be farther from the once godlike and over caffeinated businessmen of Wall Street, but it’s the thought that counts.

The seagulls follow you on your descent down the metal skeleton of the apartment complex. Your fishing pole isn’t nearly long enough to reach below the water’s surface from the top of your self preserved Mount Olympus, so you don’t have much of a choice but to go down the fire escape and scale the rusted rafters to the lowest beam.

It’s nothing short of a miracle that you haven’t fallen while doing this.

You lower the empty bucket and it clunks against the worn out steel. Down here the ocean comes to life. The ocean breeze whistles in your ears, the waves greet you with teasing mists that fog your shades, and the aroma of sea salt becomes so overbearing that the stale, flat scent of the apartment seems like a downgrade in comparison. Your feathered pursuers keep their distance. You’ve already asserted your dominance numerous times, so they’re aware of the standard protocol by now. No stealing fish out of your bucket, no coming into the apartment, and no shitting on your hair. Professionals have boundaries that other respectful professionals should adhere to and vice versa. Once your preparations are complete, putting bait on the hook and adjusting your imaginary tie, you get busy fishing for the best stocks to sink your teeth into.

It isn’t until the sun starts to creep away from the center of the sky and into your line of sight before becoming a glaring beacon your eyes can’t avoid that you pack up for the day. The wet outline of a fish you had reeled in that smacked against your chest has dried, your water bottle is empty (to the dismay of your chapped lips), and the seagulls that had left during the boring wait for fish to bite have returned now that your bucket is full. They follow you, like predatory loan sharks and con artists watching a young investor struggle to manage his newly earned cash. Climbing a building with a wet pail full of fish is difficult, so you squeeze the handle past your head and let it choke you while your fingers scramble for the next ancient bolt. There’s no judgement, but the presence of so many eyes watching you, expecting something out of you, makes you nervous.

When you do reach the flat concrete top of your apartment, your nervousness sinks towards despair. Business hasn’t gone their way, so a fresh piece of meat like you walking off with so much dough has their attention. It’s their own faults really for being a bunch of ostriches and ignoring the blatant red flags attached to their bond purchases, but in the world of rising and falling prices, that means nothing. They rush at you and you shriek, dropping your equipment. One finds purchase on the rim of the bucket still strangling you and takes its piece. You’re panicking now; these morons who think investing in a dog with fleas is a profitable idea are leeching off of your hard earned bills. That’s not to mention the pressure around your throat and the beaks pinching your skin. You struggle to get the bucket off but your precision is impaired by the feathers and your anxiety is making your hands tremble and it makes it hard for you to focus and go through the motions to slip the handle past your head. When you do, your shades come off along with it, and the bucket hits the ground noisily. The fish don’t even have the chance to slap against the ground as your opposition makes off with your free enterprise harvest. You don’t care though, you plunge your arm into the storm of mayhem and find your shades before you dash into your apartment.

You don’t even care that your hair has feathers in it or that your back is wet and stinky from the fish when you throw yourself onto your bed. Your pillow becomes an anchor as you wrap your arms around it, digging your fingers into the cloth and sniffling. It takes a while for the adrenaline pumping through you to subside, not aided by the fact that you jump every time you hear a particularly grating seagull screech. By then you’re drained, and you decide that after a quick nap you’ll have to settle for a canned dinner and try again in the morning.

Being a stock handler in a bear market is a tough way to live, but all you can do is hope that tomorrow the bull will show its horns.


End file.
